Meeting Title: Weekly Time Allocations Date: 2025-05-06 Meeting participants: Megan Murray, Amber Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:01:14.810 ⇒ 00:01:16.139 Amber Lin: Hi, Megan.
2 00:01:18.210 ⇒ 00:01:21.530 Amber Lin: Okay, I hmm. I don’t hear your audio.
3 00:01:22.040 ⇒ 00:01:23.968 Megan Murray: Well, hold on! This has been.
4 00:01:24.290 ⇒ 00:01:24.829 Amber Lin: There you go.
5 00:01:24.830 ⇒ 00:01:26.339 Amber Lin: Is it working now?
6 00:01:26.350 ⇒ 00:01:27.470 Amber Lin: It’s working now.
7 00:01:27.470 ⇒ 00:01:44.929 Megan Murray: Yeah, every time I get on like a a new company’s zoom it just like auto mutes. So it’s like, even though, like I have zoom installed. It’s like it just kind of recognizes like, Oh, new settings or something. So I’m constantly having to turn it back on so.
8 00:01:45.570 ⇒ 00:01:47.709 Amber Lin: Well, nice to meet you.
9 00:01:47.710 ⇒ 00:01:55.479 Megan Murray: Nice to officially meet you, too. I know we’ve exchanged a lot of back and forth on slack, but it’s good to good to chat with you.
10 00:01:55.800 ⇒ 00:02:05.269 Amber Lin: Yeah, I have. I have a little bit of an idea what you do for Brainforge. But let’s do a little intro.
11 00:02:05.450 ⇒ 00:02:14.460 Megan Murray: Yeah. So I I support a couple of different companies really to help them manage all things. Finance, Hr. Accounting taxes.
12 00:02:14.470 ⇒ 00:02:30.410 Megan Murray: bookkeeping, monthly, close revenue recognition pretty much everything that falls under the finance team for a bigger company. So so yeah, so that’s pretty much what I do. So I’ve got a team that works for me.
13 00:02:30.830 ⇒ 00:02:50.660 Megan Murray: to kind of do all of the more specific Hr compliance stuff. So Tina’s on my team. You might see her pop up periodically. She’s Hr. Ops on slack. So but yeah, that’s Tina. We have someone else, bree who backs her up periodically. But Tina’s pretty quick. So.
14 00:02:50.660 ⇒ 00:02:51.329 Amber Lin: I don’t know.
15 00:02:51.330 ⇒ 00:03:05.090 Megan Murray: And then I’ve got Kelly, who really helps with like everything on the data side and financial reporting. And then we’ve got Kenzie, who does the bookkeeping on, you know, monthly close, and all of that.
16 00:03:05.220 ⇒ 00:03:13.970 Megan Murray: So she’s just getting started right now and then we have Troy, who does our taxes. And so that pretty much, yeah, pretty much covers the team.
17 00:03:13.970 ⇒ 00:03:42.720 Amber Lin: Awesome. Okay, I’ll cover my part. So I’m I started as a project manager for Brainforge right now, expanding to more task. So internal projects that we’re doing and also working on strategy right now, because Robert has very little time to actually do strategy. They’re very caught up with sales. So outlining the strategy of how different areas we should do things. And one of the big parts of it is
18 00:03:43.390 ⇒ 00:04:00.900 Amber Lin: profitability and financial performance. And that’s where I really would like to talk to you more about how do we even like before I outline a strategy like, how do we even think about it? Because you have so much experience in finances. That’s kind of the air that you live and breathe. So yeah.
19 00:04:01.890 ⇒ 00:04:13.280 Amber Lin: so for the goal of this meeting, I was just talking to Utam. He’s on another call right now, but essentially want to hear your take on like how we do.
20 00:04:13.400 ⇒ 00:04:30.699 Amber Lin: how we can achieve profitability. I can share my understanding of like, how we do project and people level allocations. And mostly to get your idea of what else do we need to do? What do we need to improve on.
21 00:04:31.070 ⇒ 00:04:57.329 Megan Murray: Yeah, totally so. And I, I had a chance to dig into the financials like on quickbooks, and all of that a little bit more. But then I so there were some things that I think were like totally right in line with what you’re saying. And then there was like between all the various different spreadsheets and trying to get my arms around like, okay, we’ve got some people who are paid kind of a fixed rate, but they’re billed out hourly.
22 00:04:57.360 ⇒ 00:05:10.099 Megan Murray: and other people that are billed more hourly. So I think, like, that’s kind of the missing piece that I have, as far as like, what’s the structure? What are all the things that people are working on? Like I
23 00:05:10.230 ⇒ 00:05:33.310 Megan Murray: I was able to get pretty close, but as far as like, aside from just going through everybody’s direct contracts. So I figure you’re probably pretty looped in with that piece. But the way I think about it is, we’ve got the you know, cause it’s all. It’s all contractor driven. So whether people are on a fixed rate or they’re, you know, build more hourly.
24 00:05:33.635 ⇒ 00:05:59.610 Megan Murray: Then, like most of the contracts, are kind of set where there is an hourly component that’s driving it. But then the challenge that we’ve had that I give Utam a lot of credit. He was able to kind of take some quick action on some of this after I just looked at some of the contracts, and I was like, this is like all over the place, like we were sending out invoices a month after services started, and then it was net 30, but we were paying the contractors
25 00:05:59.610 ⇒ 00:06:07.430 Megan Murray: as they’re doing the work right. And so there was this like lag that was totally backwards. So we got ahead of that which is good. But then.
26 00:06:07.480 ⇒ 00:06:26.450 Megan Murray: the way I want to look at it, too, is the profitability of of the client. And so who are the people working on those. And then there’s and then there’s a whole other section of automation, and like different different things that aren’t being billed back to the clients.
27 00:06:26.470 ⇒ 00:06:43.770 Megan Murray: so I kind of look at it as like the cost of sales contractors. Those are the people who are directly tied to the revenue, doing the work. And then there’s kind of like a below the line. You know, contractors who are doing more like business optimation for Brainforge just in general.
28 00:06:44.510 ⇒ 00:07:12.329 Megan Murray: So and then we have, like all the subscriptions and insurance and services, like all the other, like licenses and things there too. So I know who Tom was taking a a big pass, a pretty thorough pass through like oh, well, what subscriptions do we have? And so I know that that we should start to see some benefit, for you know that. But it could save like a couple definitely a couple of 100 bucks from what he was saying. So.
29 00:07:12.330 ⇒ 00:07:20.780 Amber Lin: He showed me the screenshot. I think we identify $582 per month. Just good night.
30 00:07:20.780 ⇒ 00:07:23.710 Megan Murray: That’s pretty significant. So yeah.
31 00:07:23.710 ⇒ 00:07:44.100 Amber Lin: And to clarify. So I was writing out this structure as well. So what you see from our main like profitability structure is that all of our revenue is client projects right? All of it is currently from projects. I don’t think we have any additional sources of revenue E, even if it’s very small and insignificant.
32 00:07:44.100 ⇒ 00:07:45.202 Megan Murray: Yeah, you’re right,
33 00:07:45.935 ⇒ 00:08:13.319 Amber Lin: Revenue, and then for cost, we have 3 tiers of cost. 2 of them are so for service costs, so for the contractors, cost of working on the client project or cost of working on internal stuff, and then the last part would be like subscriptions, licenses. Any of the additional fees that we have is that all of our costs, so far, when you looked at like our quickbooks, or whatever.
34 00:08:13.960 ⇒ 00:08:26.711 Megan Murray: Sounds right? Yeah. And then, like the and and some like, business administration fees like, there’s some filing fees and stuff like that, you know, like kind of annual compliance things. But
35 00:08:27.440 ⇒ 00:08:34.110 Megan Murray: but yeah, so we’ll definitely be getting the books a little bit more. You know, like just
36 00:08:34.559 ⇒ 00:08:46.690 Megan Murray: more structured, I guess. But so that’s ultimately how I wanna see it is, you know, where we can identify. Okay, how much work done in the month of April, and then
37 00:08:46.690 ⇒ 00:08:47.150 Megan Murray: and the rest
38 00:08:47.150 ⇒ 00:08:57.220 Megan Murray: revenue like assigned with that. So we can actually like, see what that profitability starts to look like in a month from a month to month, perspective.
39 00:09:00.180 ⇒ 00:09:13.349 Amber Lin: so on that. Do you mean to map all the contractor work like related to client projects? Or are we looking at every single cause like what are what, exactly are we trying to map here.
40 00:09:13.910 ⇒ 00:09:23.310 Megan Murray: Yeah, well, it would. The subscriptions and things like that. Those are gonna be kind of just like that’s just a core cost of, you know, doing.
41 00:09:23.310 ⇒ 00:09:23.960 Amber Lin: In the business.
42 00:09:23.960 ⇒ 00:09:46.612 Megan Murray: Yeah, just having a team member, you know. But then but yeah, then, being able to more easily distinguish because we we track the projects in clockify. And and so, like, we can see. Okay, this is a brain forge internal project. This was, for you know, Eden health. And so we can see some of those right
43 00:09:47.060 ⇒ 00:09:57.919 Megan Murray: so that but then I also think we should move to gusto for the time tracking. So I’d love to cause. That’s what people are, you know, kind of familiar
44 00:09:57.920 ⇒ 00:10:18.210 Megan Murray: with, anyway. I think that would just streamline things operationally, because it does seem a little manual now. And I I’ll be the 1st to admit I’m not super clear on like what’s the cadence of when people need to get paid. You know, is my team supposed to be taking the lead on that, or like, how do we wanna.
45 00:10:18.410 ⇒ 00:10:18.940 Amber Lin: I see.
46 00:10:18.940 ⇒ 00:10:20.360 Megan Murray: Do that? Yeah. So just.
47 00:10:20.360 ⇒ 00:10:20.993 Amber Lin: Just like,
48 00:10:21.310 ⇒ 00:10:25.020 Megan Murray: Just, you know, some of those little final details. I think.
49 00:10:25.200 ⇒ 00:10:38.879 Amber Lin: I see? So let. I’m just. I’m just noting down a few next steps here, so to look in the 1st ones to look into gusto for time tracking, which was pretty open to that. I think we just need to test it out, and
50 00:10:39.290 ⇒ 00:10:50.260 Amber Lin: maybe for a small team, and then pull the trigger to convert that over, so that shouldn’t take too much on the part. Where? When’s the cadence? People get paid?
51 00:10:50.390 ⇒ 00:11:09.050 Amber Lin: I believe right now I’m on. I’m like, everyone’s still a contractor. But right now I’m on, say salary. So every month it’s it’s fixed, and so I get paid 2 times a month before, when it was more hourly. It was a monthly basis, and I imagine that.
52 00:11:09.050 ⇒ 00:11:09.700 Megan Murray: Right.
53 00:11:09.700 ⇒ 00:11:17.229 Amber Lin: For other people who doesn’t have like a fixed annual rate. So that would just be the 2 possible cadences.
54 00:11:17.550 ⇒ 00:11:37.449 Amber Lin: And we’re not that great on paying on time. So probably my niece probably would need action from your team to help boost that forward because I like. I’ve had to manually rewind every single term. So probably we should talk to Utam on if your team should take that on.
55 00:11:38.150 ⇒ 00:12:00.310 Megan Murray: Yeah, and especially for, like some of the fixed rates and things like that, like, we can just kind of set those up. A little more automated as long as everyone is mostly on the same cycles of either getting paid monthly or twice a month. Then we can put more structure around. We know what days we want to do that, too. So.
56 00:12:00.310 ⇒ 00:12:10.969 Amber Lin: I see so aligning that pay cycle dates as well, because I remember we aligned the billing structure for clients. I think this is something that we want to do, too.
57 00:12:11.280 ⇒ 00:12:37.910 Megan Murray: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So then maybe, like, typically what I would, what I would see is that if they’re paid twice a month, the 15th and the last day of the month are kind of the targets. And then, if it is, you know that more of that like once monthly, then we just pick one or the the other, and we say, anyone who’s on a fixed monthly rate. They are paid on the 30, th or whatever it is, so.
58 00:12:40.180 ⇒ 00:12:43.719 Amber Lin: Sounds good. Yeah. For the
59 00:12:44.270 ⇒ 00:12:57.880 Amber Lin: I think for the monthly, like once, A month. Payments is for those people who have to track their hours. And then we close the books based on how many hours they’ve done that month. For people like me, who’s on a fixed salary is just
60 00:12:58.390 ⇒ 00:13:01.369 Amber Lin: probably should just automate that like there’s there’s.
61 00:13:01.370 ⇒ 00:13:02.110 Megan Murray: Yeah.
62 00:13:02.110 ⇒ 00:13:03.849 Amber Lin: And see how much they get paid.
63 00:13:04.440 ⇒ 00:13:11.030 Megan Murray: Yeah, exactly. And so where is the best place? Cause the
64 00:13:11.480 ⇒ 00:13:23.149 Megan Murray: you know. The thing, too, is like with spreadsheets over time. They become kind of like jumbled. And you’re like, Oh, I’ve got this tab for this thing. I’ve got the financial models that I’ve been able to like. Kind of
65 00:13:23.686 ⇒ 00:13:48.179 Megan Murray: used to dig into like hourly time and all that, but but going back to like the the timing issue I was describing about like not being able to really line these up in the right month. Now we can fix it for March or sorry for April, but and going forward. But it is just kind of like trying to get my arms around is still a little bit of a challenge, so.
66 00:13:48.576 ⇒ 00:13:55.310 Amber Lin: So you’re asking, where can you access? All of our financial information? Is that what I’m hearing.
67 00:13:55.310 ⇒ 00:14:02.320 Megan Murray: Just kind of a summary of like how people are paid like, who are the people like yourself that are on a fixed rate.
68 00:14:02.320 ⇒ 00:14:03.070 Amber Lin: Hmm.
69 00:14:03.070 ⇒ 00:14:08.340 Megan Murray: Is that like, where’s the best place to get that? Or would it be in gusto.
70 00:14:08.580 ⇒ 00:14:19.479 Amber Lin: That is a great question. I believe it should be in gusto. I haven’t had the like. The Admin access to go into gusto and see everybody’s like
71 00:14:19.730 ⇒ 00:14:22.780 Amber Lin: their information. Let me know. Down to.
72 00:14:22.780 ⇒ 00:14:23.669 Megan Murray: Oh, okay.
73 00:14:23.670 ⇒ 00:14:34.020 Amber Lin: To get that access to you, or at least to have a centralized source of information, because I do agree it. It is quite a bit over all over the place. Create.
74 00:14:34.230 ⇒ 00:14:34.930 Amber Lin: So
75 00:14:38.330 ⇒ 00:14:41.830 Amber Lin: so what would you like in that
76 00:14:42.090 ⇒ 00:14:51.809 Amber Lin: data? So like the central database, I already know, like, when people are getting paid, and what type of payments they want to receive, what else.
77 00:14:52.470 ⇒ 00:15:00.550 Megan Murray: Like, kind of just a current of that. And now I’m actually trying to log into gusto to see what I can find myself.
78 00:15:03.060 ⇒ 00:15:08.549 Megan Murray: Cause. Yeah, this was kind of the last piece of the puzzle that I just didn’t get to yet. And
79 00:15:09.600 ⇒ 00:15:18.670 Megan Murray: let’s see cause there’s a there’s a lot of people in there, because there’s even, you know, like.
80 00:15:18.870 ⇒ 00:15:22.420 Megan Murray: yeah, there’s just there’s just a lot of people in there. So.
81 00:15:22.880 ⇒ 00:15:23.200 Amber Lin: Yeah.
82 00:15:23.200 ⇒ 00:15:28.660 Megan Murray: E, okay, go to brain forge.
83 00:15:30.930 ⇒ 00:15:43.879 Megan Murray: So and then even to just like the the workflow of like the onboarding, and all of that, too. So people like, yeah, I can go
84 00:15:44.670 ⇒ 00:15:46.049 Megan Murray: do do.
85 00:15:48.120 ⇒ 00:15:53.839 Megan Murray: But yeah, there’s like 25 people in here. I don’t think all of those are currently active. But
86 00:15:55.080 ⇒ 00:16:00.580 Amber Lin: Do we remove those that’s not currently active like this gusto charge by user as well.
87 00:16:00.820 ⇒ 00:16:21.039 Megan Murray: They don’t. Well, actually, yeah, they do. They do. It’s like it’s like 6 bucks a month or something. And and if you’re not paying them. Then they don’t count towards that, anyway. So it’s kind of about the same, but we can make them an active. We probably do need to do that. So looking in here.
88 00:16:21.590 ⇒ 00:16:28.300 Megan Murray: yeah, I can definitely, if I drill into all the people I can see what they’re currently set up with.
89 00:16:29.289 ⇒ 00:16:48.339 Megan Murray: But yeah, I just didn’t know like which I I can do, or I can have Tina do from my team. But yeah, if there, so I think that would be another thing we want to do. Anyone who’s not currently active. We could make them inactive. That sort of thing.
90 00:16:48.520 ⇒ 00:17:13.110 Amber Lin: Yeah, probably helpful. You’re closing as well. I know that most of our documentation is in notion. So probably when it comes to onboarding and how we do certain things. Documentation should be a notion. I’m I don’t know if you have talked with Mary Ann, so she handles most of our operational stuff. So she would be most clear on, okay, how? What are the specific steps that we do onboarding?
91 00:17:14.700 ⇒ 00:17:15.630 Amber Lin: But
92 00:17:16.040 ⇒ 00:17:39.450 Amber Lin: the 1st thing that comes to mind of creating, like a centralized database, for, say by person, how are they getting paid, or what projects are they on? I think, like a notion data base table would be pretty nice for that, like. Tag them by like contract, like per hour or tag by paid payment per month. So you can just have like a overall view for that.
93 00:17:40.830 ⇒ 00:17:41.760 Amber Lin: Oh, okay.
94 00:17:42.220 ⇒ 00:17:43.629 Megan Murray: Yeah, that could work.
95 00:17:43.870 ⇒ 00:17:54.069 Amber Lin: Oh, yeah, I will. I’ll ask Marianne to do that then. So I guess
96 00:17:54.170 ⇒ 00:18:03.240 Amber Lin: a list of what are like list of informations that you would like to see. I can brainstorm this with AI as well, but just to clarify.
97 00:18:03.500 ⇒ 00:18:22.460 Megan Murray: Yeah, well, I mean, really, just kinda getting a sense of like, who’s active? Who’s who’s not? And I can even send you to like just sort of a screenshot of everybody that’s in there. If you just wanna even and then we can make people
98 00:18:23.070 ⇒ 00:18:26.719 Megan Murray: of what’s the best way to do that.
99 00:18:27.110 ⇒ 00:18:29.569 Amber Lin: Do you wanna share screen? Would that be okay?
100 00:18:29.570 ⇒ 00:18:32.120 Megan Murray: Yeah, let me do that.
101 00:18:40.650 ⇒ 00:18:41.390 Amber Lin: Let me know.
102 00:18:43.470 ⇒ 00:18:52.130 Amber Lin: I think we Sahana is like phasing out, so eventually she will probably be inactive in like
103 00:18:52.450 ⇒ 00:18:55.679 Amber Lin: at least after this month she’ll be inactive.
104 00:18:56.020 ⇒ 00:18:56.395 Megan Murray: Okay.
105 00:18:57.172 ⇒ 00:19:02.409 Amber Lin: Nick is so he’s probably not active. If I don’t even know him.
106 00:19:02.410 ⇒ 00:19:03.125 Megan Murray: Yeah.
107 00:19:03.840 ⇒ 00:19:08.550 Amber Lin: I don’t know what bp, data like. Who that is.
108 00:19:08.840 ⇒ 00:19:09.410 Amber Lin: That’s.
109 00:19:09.410 ⇒ 00:19:10.800 Megan Murray: Somebody!
110 00:19:11.180 ⇒ 00:19:11.770 Megan Murray: Oh, my!
111 00:19:11.770 ⇒ 00:19:15.780 Amber Lin: Yeah. Don’t know the hash consulting Llc.
112 00:19:15.880 ⇒ 00:19:17.659 Amber Lin: like, what is their full name?
113 00:19:18.360 ⇒ 00:19:27.190 Amber Lin: Is this just a external corp, like? Maybe some of them are like companies. Other consultancies we outsource to.
114 00:19:27.190 ⇒ 00:19:31.850 Megan Murray: I think that can also be the case too probably the same.
115 00:19:31.850 ⇒ 00:19:39.909 Amber Lin: Oh, maybe it’s their own like like this is Kyle. So he’s person who works for us. But maybe he just has his own, like Llc. That.
116 00:19:39.910 ⇒ 00:19:41.900 Megan Murray: Exactly. Yeah.
117 00:19:44.310 ⇒ 00:19:46.070 Megan Murray: Ask about some of those.
118 00:19:46.070 ⇒ 00:19:48.840 Amber Lin: Yeah, probably need to clarify on that.
119 00:19:49.356 ⇒ 00:19:54.239 Amber Lin: Don’t think Jacob is active anymore. I think we phased him out.
120 00:19:54.630 ⇒ 00:19:55.340 Megan Murray: Okay.
121 00:19:55.818 ⇒ 00:20:01.490 Amber Lin: Hash consulting honestly. Don’t know who that is, and then
122 00:20:02.080 ⇒ 00:20:05.620 Amber Lin: guess if we scroll down a little bit more
123 00:20:08.940 ⇒ 00:20:14.070 Amber Lin: I think Brian’s no longer act active.
124 00:20:14.450 ⇒ 00:20:20.159 Amber Lin: Akaj is no longer active, and Jonna is no longer active.
125 00:20:20.840 ⇒ 00:20:28.410 Amber Lin: Is my assumption, probably before we completely deactivate them, probably should check
126 00:20:28.650 ⇒ 00:20:31.529 Amber Lin: like, make a final run through with Utah.
127 00:20:31.530 ⇒ 00:20:33.219 Megan Murray: Yeah, for sure.
128 00:20:33.220 ⇒ 00:20:34.339 Amber Lin: That’s my take.
129 00:20:35.920 ⇒ 00:20:38.400 Megan Murray: I think there was one more.
130 00:20:39.090 ⇒ 00:20:41.379 Megan Murray: Yeah. So I think we’re good.
131 00:20:41.880 ⇒ 00:20:42.770 Megan Murray: Yeah.
132 00:20:44.440 ⇒ 00:20:58.870 Megan Murray: So okay, well, I’ll just double check with you, Tom, on those. But yeah, if Mary Ann’s got the access to put that together, that would be super helpful. Just as a reference point I also have.
133 00:21:00.200 ⇒ 00:21:12.600 Megan Murray: I put together this view where I was just trying to do kind of just something like quick and dirty of like. This is the revenue that we’ve contracted, based on
134 00:21:12.960 ⇒ 00:21:17.920 Megan Murray: the date and the months like. So so for like some.
135 00:21:17.920 ⇒ 00:21:18.320 Amber Lin: That’s.
136 00:21:18.320 ⇒ 00:21:22.730 Megan Murray: Yeah, so like, we know
137 00:21:23.650 ⇒ 00:21:33.520 Megan Murray: is gonna be so just to try to help with that. But then, when I was pulling in all the contractor payments for the month. That’s where it got like, just kinda
138 00:21:33.820 ⇒ 00:21:35.270 Megan Murray: yeah, confusing.
139 00:21:35.270 ⇒ 00:21:44.200 Megan Murray: Cause it’s like the revenue is not really there. And then, when we’re like looking at. There’s a bunch of non billable time, too.
140 00:21:45.080 ⇒ 00:21:50.280 Megan Murray: And so then I’m ultimately trying to get to like a client level profitability view. But.
141 00:21:50.280 ⇒ 00:21:50.790 Amber Lin: Yeah.
142 00:21:50.790 ⇒ 00:22:04.149 Megan Murray: Didn’t get that far with this, because these times are like kinda all over the place, like I can tell who we invoiced and who we paid or who, you know, accrued time in a month.
143 00:22:05.010 ⇒ 00:22:16.350 Megan Murray: Trying to like. See? Over time, like, okay, like, we’re like, pull parts. To go is actually like, looks like more profitable than some of these others.
144 00:22:17.730 ⇒ 00:22:25.419 Megan Murray: so yeah, it’s still just a work in progress. But that was one way I started looking at it. And this is just in Google sheets. So.
145 00:22:25.420 ⇒ 00:22:52.689 Amber Lin: What I wanted to do. When I was talking about like the financial modeling. But I know this would. This would have took me so so much time. But this makes my brain so happy like. This is what I do for my for myself. Hours like what are the costs, and what the revenue. So this is so helpful. So I I guess. What? How can I help you with this like? What will make it more straightforward, or what? What components do you need.
146 00:22:53.500 ⇒ 00:22:57.720 Megan Murray: Yeah. So I just pulled this out of clockify. And then
147 00:22:57.970 ⇒ 00:23:03.215 Megan Murray: pretty much just Oh, where do I go? New? So there’s this new one
148 00:23:04.110 ⇒ 00:23:09.170 Megan Murray: but like it’s this is pretty much just like a download out, and then all.
149 00:23:09.170 ⇒ 00:23:11.069 Amber Lin: Yeah, yeah, I did that, too.
150 00:23:11.070 ⇒ 00:23:12.420 Megan Murray: Looks it up.
151 00:23:12.420 ⇒ 00:23:13.150 Amber Lin: But then.
152 00:23:13.150 ⇒ 00:23:16.380 Megan Murray: I don’t know. Like these rates. They were just.
153 00:23:16.380 ⇒ 00:23:20.520 Amber Lin: The rates are not correct, at least I know for me.
154 00:23:20.520 ⇒ 00:23:43.309 Megan Murray: Yeah. So then, that’s that’s the other challenge. You know, it’s like, we really need to be kind of looking at. Like, yeah. So anyway, that was another one where I was like, I’m looking at some of these rates, and I don’t think these people all get paid this. So that was another issue I ran into. And so that’s like causing
155 00:23:43.540 ⇒ 00:23:46.180 Megan Murray: just some other challenges, you know.
156 00:23:46.180 ⇒ 00:23:51.869 Amber Lin: Okay, awesome. So let me make sure that that’s also included in like the
157 00:23:52.413 ⇒ 00:24:08.540 Amber Lin: like the internal general view that Marianne will create. Probably if you need something immediately, there’s probably something in gusto right now. I don’t know like how much people are getting paid paid, so I’ll note that down.
158 00:24:09.090 ⇒ 00:24:18.219 Megan Murray: Yeah. So that’s that’s the other issue, because there’s a lot of data in here. But then I’m like, I don’t know the last time some of this stuff was touched and.
159 00:24:18.220 ⇒ 00:24:18.990 Amber Lin: Hmm.
160 00:24:19.250 ⇒ 00:24:29.083 Megan Murray: It’s just like it’s just kinda hard, I mean, in. In fact, we could probably just do like a Google sheet.
161 00:24:29.530 ⇒ 00:24:30.180 Amber Lin: Knowing me.
162 00:24:30.180 ⇒ 00:24:34.529 Megan Murray: Easier for me, cause I’d be access able to access it from both my accounts.
163 00:24:34.530 ⇒ 00:24:42.100 Megan Murray: Okay, awesome. Kind of like a starting point. But, like I don’t think this is accurate, you know.
164 00:24:42.100 ⇒ 00:25:11.379 Amber Lin: Yeah. And then another issue that I want to preface you with that might pop up is that people’s rates have changed. So maybe someone got a promotion. So maybe after a certain date and time, their rates have changed, and therefore will affect our cost. Don’t exactly know how you would do the V lookup maybe to do like a if, then statement or like, based on the specific dates. But there’s just that additional layer of complexity, of like changing rates.
165 00:25:11.570 ⇒ 00:25:17.129 Megan Murray: Yeah, you’re right. That does kind of make it a little challenging.
166 00:25:17.240 ⇒ 00:25:18.190 Megan Murray: So.
167 00:25:18.510 ⇒ 00:25:26.770 Megan Murray: but yeah, I mean, I’ve got this all in this in this spreadsheet. But, like I said, it’s not accurate, and I don’t think
168 00:25:27.000 ⇒ 00:25:32.390 Megan Murray: it’s like the best version of what it could be. You know.
169 00:25:33.000 ⇒ 00:25:39.226 Amber Lin: I mean, this is this is a huge leap from what we had before. We just had nothing.
170 00:25:40.761 ⇒ 00:25:53.399 Amber Lin: I mean, I don’t even know how they how Utam and Robert like, knew that they were a profitable business without having like this type of financial model. So you’ve been really helpful for them. I can.
171 00:25:53.400 ⇒ 00:26:06.330 Megan Murray: Yeah, I mean, well, and it’s it’s hard to say like, if it really is profitable or not, because of that lag issue, you know like that was pretty challenging. So.
172 00:26:06.330 ⇒ 00:26:06.820 Amber Lin: Hmm.
173 00:26:07.118 ⇒ 00:26:13.989 Megan Murray: But I think going forward we’ll have a better sense. It’s just a little bit like all over the place right now. So.
174 00:26:13.990 ⇒ 00:26:16.870 Amber Lin: I see? I guess. My.
175 00:26:17.240 ⇒ 00:26:39.310 Amber Lin: I don’t. Wanna we have like 4 min. So I don’t wanna take up too much for your time. So last question I have is on like time tracking. What would you say is the best practice? That you’ve seen to help people track time accurately, because ideally, we want it very, very granular. We want it perfect. But most of the time it just doesn’t happen. So what would you recommend.
176 00:26:40.010 ⇒ 00:26:48.650 Megan Murray: Yeah, I mean you, you mean, for like making sure people’s data gets where it needs to be on what they’re tracking.
177 00:26:48.650 ⇒ 00:26:57.240 Amber Lin: Yeah, like the minimal level of detail that we kind of require for even this financial model to make sense. Because ultimately, that’s all we need.
178 00:26:57.240 ⇒ 00:27:13.239 Megan Murray: Yeah. Well, really, it’s it’s the project. It’s the time in the project like anything beyond that like, if they’re talking about like, Oh, I was doing this specific coding for this specific thing like, I don’t look at that. I’m looking at things kind of rolled up in aggregate.
179 00:27:13.590 ⇒ 00:27:14.030 Amber Lin: But.
180 00:27:14.334 ⇒ 00:27:26.209 Megan Murray: But yeah. And then, like for the the people like some people with time tracking, they wanna you know, they’ll have their own spreadsheet, and then once a month they’ll just go and put everything in right. But like
181 00:27:26.560 ⇒ 00:27:32.670 Megan Murray: that you’re putting a little bit more rigor around like the
182 00:27:32.840 ⇒ 00:27:45.099 Megan Murray: like doing it on a weekly basis. And how are we allocating? Or another thing, too, with a bunch of the contracts? They have caps in them. So if there’s like a 15 h weekly cap
183 00:27:45.320 ⇒ 00:27:50.289 Megan Murray: and someone’s spending 20 h, then we’re kind of eating that cost, too.
184 00:27:50.290 ⇒ 00:27:51.060 Amber Lin: Yeah.
185 00:27:51.060 ⇒ 00:28:01.929 Megan Murray: Hourly. But if they’re on a fixed rate, that matters a little bit less. But yeah, it’s it’s definitely still in data collection mode.
186 00:28:01.930 ⇒ 00:28:19.719 Amber Lin: Okay, sounds good. So sounds like we also when we create that central spreadsheet, when when for the client section, we probably need to point out, okay, this one has a cap and maybe on the Google sheet, we highlight. Okay, this for the past, like month or past
187 00:28:20.150 ⇒ 00:28:24.100 Amber Lin: few months, we’ve went over the calf like every single month, because it like
188 00:28:24.720 ⇒ 00:28:26.330 Amber Lin: happening for a few of them.
189 00:28:27.000 ⇒ 00:28:29.860 Megan Murray: And it’s a it’s a weekly cap, too. So
190 00:28:30.240 ⇒ 00:28:40.199 Megan Murray: like for the month. Then we have to kind of like, okay, well, and I could do times by 4. That’s gonna get us pretty close. But yeah, that’s it is a weekly cap which even
191 00:28:40.900 ⇒ 00:28:43.130 Megan Murray: makes it a little bit more.
192 00:28:43.280 ⇒ 00:28:44.060 Amber Lin: Oh.
193 00:28:44.920 ⇒ 00:28:55.269 Amber Lin: when it comes to weekly caps, how does the pay like? How does the payment work say if one, if the cap is 15 h one week. We do 21 week. We do 5
194 00:28:55.430 ⇒ 00:29:03.380 Amber Lin: like does the week of the 5. We only get paid for like 5 h, or does it kind of average out like, how does that work.
195 00:29:03.380 ⇒ 00:29:07.999 Megan Murray: It’s it’s kind of an interesting way to do it, to be honest. So
196 00:29:09.070 ⇒ 00:29:24.560 Megan Murray: yeah, I I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer for that, because if we’re sending out the, you know invoices on a monthly basis, then, you know, I kind of look at things just again, like in aggregate over that time period.
197 00:29:24.770 ⇒ 00:29:26.630 Megan Murray: So, yeah.
198 00:29:26.630 ⇒ 00:29:38.949 Megan Murray: yeah, I’ll check it with Tom on how that goes. So I I think the weekly cab is kind of weird. But sometimes the clients just they don’t want to pay more like having a weekly cab makes some more comfortable.
199 00:29:41.500 ⇒ 00:29:48.110 Megan Murray: Yeah. And especially if they have like a specific budget, and they don’t want to go over that. Then, yeah, I get it. It makes sense.
200 00:29:49.170 ⇒ 00:29:56.669 Amber Lin: Cool any questions you have for me. I’ll send you the list of our meeting notes and like action items for for our side.
201 00:29:56.670 ⇒ 00:29:59.940 Megan Murray: That would be helpful, awesome.
202 00:30:00.260 ⇒ 00:30:03.199 Amber Lin: Good chatting with you. Okay.
203 00:30:03.580 ⇒ 00:30:03.960 Megan Murray: Okay.
204 00:30:03.960 ⇒ 00:30:10.119 Amber Lin: I already love all of the stuff for work you’re doing. I think our brains work in a very similar way.
205 00:30:10.120 ⇒ 00:30:10.650 Megan Murray: Good.
206 00:30:10.650 ⇒ 00:30:11.285 Amber Lin: Thanks.
207 00:30:11.920 ⇒ 00:30:13.562 Megan Murray: Makes it easier.
208 00:30:14.300 ⇒ 00:30:16.310 Amber Lin: Awesome. Okay. Talk. Soon.
209 00:30:16.740 ⇒ 00:30:18.350 Megan Murray: Great. Thank you.
210 00:30:18.500 ⇒ 00:30:19.640 Amber Lin: Bye.